Me Against the World
by flutist107
Summary: Meet Finch (Foxface) a girl from District 5 who is chosen to compete in the 74th hunger games
1. Chapter 1

It is the day of the reaping and I am scarred beyond belief. I am worried about the fact that if I was picked I would have to leave my little sister, Mara, and my mom. My sister is seven years old and I have had a close bond with her since she was born.

My dad left the day before Mara was born, so I have to be a parent figure to her since my mom spends so much time working so that we can have food on the table.

I went into my room and found a nice dress to wear to the reaping. I put it on and walked out into the living room to show my mom and sister. "Oh Finch you look lovely," my mom said as she gave me a hug. Mara nodded in agreement.

We all went down to where the ceremony would be taking place. I got in line with a bunch of other kids waiting to get signed in. When it was my turn I held out my finger and the lady pricked it and put the blood on a piece of paper.

I then walked over to the side where all the girls were standing. I saw a few of my friends from school and decided to stand with them.

"Hi Finch," one of them said, "are you nervous"? I replied to her, "I am not nervous. I'm terrified." She gave me a side hug, "maybe we won't get picked this year."

The escort for District 5 appeared on the stage. Her name was Claudia and was by far one of the strangest looking people I had ever seen.  
"Welcome to the 74th Hunger Games reaping," she said with a huge smile on her face. How could anyone be happy about the games? She reached her hand into the large bowl of girl names and took one out.

"Finch Carter." I look over at my friend. She has the same look I do, terrified.

I step out of the cluster and am escorted up onto the stage. I spot my mom and sister in the crowd. Mara doesn't have an idea on what is happening, but my mom is crying her eyes out.

Claudia walked over to the other bowl and drew out a name. "Sam Calloway." I knew him, he was a year older than me and I saw him at school once in a while.

He walked up onto the stage and stood beside me. "Shake hands you two," Claudia said. I turned to him and shook his hand. Then we were both taken into separate rooms for final goodbyes.

My mom and sister were the only ones who came back. Mara came running over and gave me a huge hug. "Mara I want you to know that I love you," I told her trying not to cry. "Will you try and win," she asked. Mom must have explained to her what was going on. "I will, I promise."

I stood up and went over to hug my mom. "Please spend time with her, she needs you now," I told her. She nodded.

A peacekeeper came in and took them out of the room. Once they left I put my head in my hands and just cried. I knew I had to try and win for both of them.

A little while later we were taken onto a train. I went to the back and looked out the window. "Goodbye District 5."


	2. Chapter 2

I am sitting in the back of the train looking out the window when all of a sudden I start to hear footsteps. I look over and see Sam followed by a woman who is actually wearing casual clothing. "My name is Rita and I will be your mentor," she said as she sat down in an empty chair.

Sam sat down next to me and I turned to face Rita. "Where do we start," I asked. She looked at me with a startled look on her face, "I think we should start with the start of the actual games," she said. "That is the bloodbath," I said.

She looked over and gave a slight nod, "yes it is, I recommend if you want to last a while in the games that you don't go to the middle." Sam had a confused look on his face, "Why can't we go into the middle"? Rita turned to look at Sam, "it is a bloodbath and a lot of people die in the bloodbath."

I looked over at Sam's expression. He was getting annoyed and unsatisfied with the answers Rita was giving. "Well I think that that's stupid," he said, "if I want to go into the Cornucopia I will go into the Cornucopia."

I couldn't take this so I had to say something. "Sam, she is our mentor and she won these games," I said, "you don't know anything about how to survive the games, so just listen to what she has to say." I couldn't believe I just said that.

Sam rolled his eyes and decided he had had enough mentoring for one day. "I am going to get some food," he said, "you two can talk all you want," he said as he stormed out of the room and went into the train car with all the food in it.

I wanted to learn more on how to stay alive. If I wanted to see my mom and sister again I could use all the advice I could take. "What do you recommend doing during the bloodbath," I asked.

She looked up at me, "run as far away from the cornucopia as you can get," she said, "once you are a good distance away you can start finding a place to make shelter." I nodded back in agreement to her. "A crucial part of your survival is water," she said, "make sure you have plenty of food and water."

Finding food would be a struggle for me. I can't hunt to save my life, my family had always got our meat from the butcher's shop in town. "Is there a lot of food to gather," I asked. "It really depends on the biome," she answered, "one year the biome was snowy and those biomes aren't going to have a lot of vegetation."

I remember my mom telling me about those Hunger Games. The boy must have been having a hard time finding food so he resorted to cannibalism. I hope that my games aren't a tundra.

I had ran out of questions for Rita and I was starting to become hungry. "Rita I think I am going to go get something to eat," I said to her. She looked over at me and answered, "please go help yourself," she smiled.

I got up and opened the door and went into a different car. I was blown away by all the food. There was chocolates and sweets everywhere. I looked on the table, there was a turkey and some mashed potatoes.

Sam was still eating and I decided to go join him. I sat down across from him and started cutting into the turkey. I was cutting into the turkey when Sam said, "what did Rita say"? Did he just ask me what Rita said? He had the opportunity to stay in there and listen to what she had to say, but I didn't want any more drama to start so I told him what she said. "We just talked about shelter and gathering food and finding water," I said, "that was all."

I started to eat my turkey and then Sam asked another question. "What did she say about food and water," he asked. I answered, "depending on the biome will determine on whether there is vegetation to eat."

He looked like he was understanding what I was saying and didn't ask any more questions. I could finally start eating my dinner. As I took my first bite I thought about Mara. Was she eating? What was she eating? All these questions kept flowing through my mind and I had no way to find out.

Thinking about all these things made me lose my appetite. "I think I am going to go to my room," I said, "good night Sam." I got up, pushed my chair in, and went to my room.

When I got to my room I put on my pajamas that were provided by the capital. They were blue and felt like they were made out of silk. These pajamas were nicer than the ones I had at home, which was just a white nightgown.

I changed out of my dress, took down my bun, and put my new pajamas on. I pulled back the covers and got into bed. Each car of the train had a window and I was looking out the window at the stars in the sky, thinking of my sister.

"I promise I will come back for you Mara," I said, "I promise." Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up from a restlessness night without sleep. All night I was thinking of my family and how they were doing. I wasn't going to spend the day sad, so I got up to go eat breakfast. I put on a yellow shirt and a black skirt to wear for the day.

I walked into the dining car of the train and saw Sam, Claudia, and Rita eating breakfast. "Oh Finch, please come join us," Claudia said as she pulled out a seat for me. There was so much food, maybe even a little more than last night's dinner.

I sat down by Claudia and poured a glass of orange juice and started to put eggs, bacon, and pancakes on my plate. All of this food was so delicious, if I did win the games I wanted a lifetime supply of all this food.

"We should be arriving at the capitol today," Claudia said very cheerfully, "I promise you it will be very grand." I had never been to the capitol but I was sure it would be outstanding. "When you arrive we will take you to your stylist," she said, "this is when you will get ready for the tribute parade," Claudia said.

"The tribute way is a great way to impress people to get sponsors," Rita said with a smile. I knew I wouldn't be getting sponsors, there wasn't anything about me that people would find impressive.

I continued to eat my dinner when I saw a building in the horizon. "I think that is the capitol," I said. Sam and I both got up to see for ourselves what our new living quarters looked like. Claudia was right, the capitol was truly grand.

When our train got closer to coming to a stop, we could hear people screaming and chanting for us. Sam and I smiled and waved at the people surrounding the train. We were then escorted off of the train and taken to our stylist and our prep team.

The prep team made me change out of my clothes and washed me from head to toe. To be honest I didn't think I was that dirty, but this is the capitol and they want us to look perfect. The prep team continued to wash me down and make me look decent.

When they were finished I was taken to a room were my stylist would come meet me and discuss my costume for the tribute parade. I heard the door open and I looked over and saw that it was my stylist. He was very tall and his hair was dyed and orange-yellow color.

"My name is Russell," he said, "and I will be your stylist." I sat up on the table that I had been laying on. "I am Finch," I said. "Very nice to meet you Finch," he said, "now let's discuss your costume for the parade."

He pulled out his design book and started to flip to the page my costume was on. "District 5 is power, so I decided to make you and your fellow tribute partner power plant workers." There was nothing wrong with that and it seemed like a good idea. I was having good feelings till I actually saw the costume sketch in his book.

The costume was silver and there was a huge circle like thing over my head, that was a headpiece. "What do you think of it," he asked. To be honest, I thought it was one of the stupidest things I had ever seen in my life, but I lied to just get it over with.

"It's great," I said with a fake smile. He smiled back, "good, I am glad you like it." I can't believe I have to wear this. "I am going to go get your costume and the prep team will be in here doing your hair and makeup."

He walked out of the room and a few moments late my prep team came in with a bunch of makeup. "We will start with your hair," one of them said. They didn't do anything special, they just put it up into a bun because my headpiece would be covering most of my hair.

My makeup went the same way, nothing special. It was very subtle and looked like I wasn't wearing any. However, they did add a small hint of silver eyeshadow.

Russell came back with the costume. "Here you can go change into this," he said. I took the costume and went to change into it. I looked at myself in the mirror and I couldn't believe what I was wearing. I walked out and showed them the costume.

"You look marvelous," he said, "people are going to love it." After seeing all of the crazy outfits people in the Capitol wore, I wouldn't be surprised.

We walked down to load into our chariot. "Smile and wave," Russel said. We got into our chariot and then we were off. We smiled and waved just like Russell had said. There were mirrors up at the top of the building so we could see ourselves, yup still looked stupid.

The audience's chanting got louder and they weren't chanting for us. I looked in the mirrors and saw the tributes from District 12. They had fire coming off the back of their costumes, they looked amazing.

Our chariots stopped in front of President Snow. He gave a small speech and then we went back to meet our escort and our mentor.

All of us went back up to the room to discuss what would happen next. "Tomorrow you start training," Rita said, "don't just focus on weapons." I understood what she meant by that. I am not good with weapons, I understand survival basics though.

We ate another large dinner and then I went to my room. There was a large window over by my bed. I walked over and sat in the windowsill looking out at the Capitol. The city was all lit up and it looked beautiful. "How do people live in such luxury," I asked myself.

I kept looking outside until I fell asleep in the windowsill.


	4. Chapter 4

All the tributes stood in a large circle around Atala. I noticed some district's tributes were absent for training, which to me, doesn't make sense. Atala continued to tell us that a majority of us would die from natural causes. When she finished talking we all broke up and went about are business.

I headed straight for the board with all the berries on it. The objective was to match up all the edible plants and insects together. A majority of them were poisonous, nightlock was the most common poisonous plant. It is found in a majority of the districts. One bite and you're dead before they reach your stomach. It is a very quick way to go.

All the careers have started forming their little group. Glimmer and Marvel from District 1, Clove and Cato from District 2, and Marina from District 4. Marina's tribute partner wasn't included in the career pack. Either because he was twelve or his mentor told him not to join.

Katniss is over by Peeta, who is painting his arm to look like a tree. I continue to match up the berries until I hear a loud yell from Cato. He keeps screaming at the District 6 boy, blaming him for taking his knife. I notice that Katniss and Thresh keep staring at something near the ceiling. I look up and see Rue holding the knife. I give a small chuckle and get back to matching up the berries.

We get a small break to eat lunch during training. We get more fancy food that I can't believe exists. I grab my meal and go sit down by the girl from District 3.

"How long do you think you'll last in the games," she asks me. I had only been in the Capitol two days and I am already getting asked how long I think I'll last, unbelievable.

"I don't know. I haven't really been in this kind of a situation."

"True, Wiress told me to form alliances with people so would you like to be my ally?"

No, not the ally thing! I have nothing against forming alliances, I just feel like they drag others in the group down. I would end up forming an alliance with her, end up having to leave the group or possibly end up having to kill her. What if she gets injured?

"I am sorry, I don't plan on forming alliances with anyone," I tell her.

"That's ok, I know I'm not going to last the bloodbath anyway."

"Why do you think that," I ask her.

"I am not a career," she said.

"You just got to believe in yourself," I say.

The bell to get back to training rings and we all make our way back into the training center. I go over to the knot tying. There is a screen that shows you the steps on the screen. As I am tying the knot I hear a loud thunk on the ground.

I turn around and see the District 3 girl on the ground. I run over to her, "are you ok," I ask. She nods her head yes and stands up. Her lip starts bleeding a little bit, but it's not too bad. The group of careers saw her fall off the gauntlet and started to laugh, her own district partner even laughed!

"Here let me help you up," I say lifting her up. I take her over to Atala and she gets her lip cleaned up.

Training went on for the rest of the day. After it was over, Sam and I went back to the Tribute Center for dinner. "How was training," Rita asked. "It went fine, a girl asked me to form an alliance with her but I told her no."

Rita got this look on her face like I was crazy. "Why would you tell her no!"

"Because I need to worry about myself in the games and not worrying if my ally made out of the bloodbath alive or in a hovercraft."

Sam started talking about how his training went and then Claudia walked in. All of us sat down at the table and began to eat dinner. I began to think, the Capitol can afford such luxuries, why couldn't they share them with the districts? After all, we do supply things for the Capitol to have these items. I didn't know, maybe someone will rebel and we could gain some of the wealth, but no one would ever rebel against the Capitol.

We had two more days of training before we would get scored. I needed to think of what skill I would show the gamemakers, maybe show off my agility skills and run on the gauntlets. I think I'll just show them my survival skills.

I had two more days to think about what I wanted to do for my skill. I went back into my room and looked out at the Capitol again, it was still beautiful. "How can something so beautiful do something so horrible," I say to myself.

If I thought the games were bad just from viewing them, what would it like to be in them? In my opinion I was glad it wasn't like the 25th Hunger Games. The 25th games was the first Quarter Quell where there is a special twist in the games. That year the tributes were voted into the games, it just goes to show how careless the society is.

Another thing I couldn't imagine was winning them. I've seen mentors from other districts roaming around the tribute center and most of them act normal, but we all know deep down that they are scarred from them.

I couldn't think about these things anymore and so I went to sleep.


End file.
